All those shimmery, pretty ones with silver caps? Those are China Glaze’s Kaleidoscope collection of 2006.

Outside

And where can you still find this entire collection and some of these other (for me) hard-to-finds? Victoria Nail Supply.

I learned of this company through Mary’s website, and in fact, I believe you still get that Milky White base coat or toe separators for free – check out Body and Soul for more information.

Anyway, onto more Kaleidoscope love:

It’s My Turn, Don’t be a Square, Rated Holographic

Spin Me Round, Visit Me in Prism, Let’s Do It in 3-D

Tickle My Triangle, How About a Tumble, Octa Gone Wild

Kaleidoscope Him Out, He’s Going in Circles, Sexagon

(Sorry that this wasn’t my best photographic work. But you can see the colors, which is probably the most important part.)

I think I’ve said it before, I know I’ll say it again, but I’m just a sucker for holographic polishes! They are almost-always my go-tos for when I need a varnish I know will cheer me up! Some of the names, though, I’m none too fond of. Octa Gone Wild reminds me too much of a particular franchise I find, frankly, disgusting. I won’t go into it here, as when I started to, I realized I went a bit too far into an off-topic diatribe.

But since, despite what Essie might think, I don’t buy colors for their names, I won’t belittle a lacquer for that reason, either. They’re pretty, and I’m pretty darned glad to have them!

I poked a little bit of fun at Essie there, but that’s because it reminds me of a survey I was sent a link to today. (I’m sure any of you that are on their email newsletter got the same one.) As I filled it out, I chuckled more and more, and found more and more things that I wanted to share with you.

First of all, let me preface this by saying that I don’t think that lacquerheads like us are their target audience. If we are, they’re a little off the mark.

For example, one question posed was “How many bottles of polish do you have?” You know what the largest number was? Twenty. Twenty! I don’t know about you, but most of my groupings (work-related, glitters, green, OPI, etc.) include more than twenty, leave alone my entire collection! We’re going to have to multiply that number by a bit to even get it close to a true representation for how many I have!

Here’s another question: “How often do you change your polish?“ Your choices are once a week, once a month, or every two weeks. I know that I am already rather unusual when I say I’ll leave a color on for up to five days, and here again even I can’t give a true representation! Once a month? Anyone I can think of from this particular community would rather eat the same meal daily for an entire month than leave one color on their nails for that long!

How about, “Where do you purchase polishes?” You know how many online-related answers there were? One. Essie.com. No other e-tailers listed, by name or by category. So I had to resort to “other” and spell out my answer.

They then gave you a list of about seven polishes or so, and you were supposed to select your favorite from among that group. As there was only one color I would ever pick, I didn’t pay too much attention to the list. Again I had to select “Other” and type in Starry Starry Night. I’m sure that I’m not alone in wanting them to re-release that color, but it wasn’t even mentioned. Grr!

Here’s classic Essie thinking for you, too. When they ask what colors you consider sexy, you can choose from red, neutral, or pink. Doesn’t that just about sum up 98.2% of Essie’s line?

And finally, and the question I was referring to up above, there’s “Why do you purchase Essie lacquers?” You could choose from: durability, color names, variety of colors, or bottle design.

I don’t know about anyone else out there, but it’s extremely, extremely rare that I will buy a color based on the name. In fact, though I can easily imagine times where that might happen, it hasn’t actually happened to me yet. And though Essie is branching out, I don’t really find that they do, in fact, have much of a “variety of colors.” But that’s just one woman’s opinion.

Anyway, anyone who is not on their mailing list can find their survey here. They say that as a reward, you get to see a preview of their fall colors. All that happens is that they tell you what the link is at the end. I’ll help ya out, if you don’t want to take the survey; it’s essie.com/seasonal. You also get a free gift – a sensitivity base coat (though they don’t tell you that will be your gift at the get-go) – but it’s from a code you have to enter with a purchase. (I’ll give you that, too; it’s freegift09, to be used at essieshop.com.)

It’s not a bad idea to take the survey, though. Maybe if all of us that missed the SSN bandwagon when it first rolled out include that as our favorite color, we can convince them to release it again. The survey took me maybe five minutes, if that, though I’m sure it was considerably shortened since I said that I didn’t have professional manicures done; my progress bar made a huge jump after that page.

And for what it’s worth, though I seem to be razzing Essie a bit up there, it’s not as though I have a problem with the polishes. I have, I think, six (two I got for free), and I’m still trying to get my hands on Greenport. But I haven’t actually worn any of them yet, so I can neither condemn nor commend their formula.

And, in closing, I have one more thing to share with you! (See what happens when two days go by when I can’t publish? But I felt the names were a perfect lead-in to the survey, and this next bit of news is both short and timely, so I’m tacking it on here.)

My Walgreens finally got the Wet N Wild Craze polishes in! And they did it at the most opportune time; they’re buy one, get one free – that’s a dollar a piece!

“Hey Larry!”

“Yes, Balki?”

“Now we are so happy, let us do the dance of joy!”

Not all of them looked that appealing to me, either in person or in any of the online swatches (such as Nicole’s, whose I found very helpful), so four came home with me:

I’m sorry these are so blurry; I couldn’t get a focused picture, whatever I did.

Left to right, we have Inferno, Shield, Rustic, and what seems to be the standout, Morbid. I didn’t really realize what tiny bottles these were – .34 fluid ounces – so I put them next to a Zoya, at .50 fl. oz., for comparison.

The BOGO sale runs through this Saturday, so Carpe Diem if there are any WNWs on your wish list!

10 comments:

Oooooer. I can't stop staring at all those glittery polishes - I love the way you've posed them. WANT. Those are amazing and I don't have any of them yet!I got several chuckles out of reading your survey questions and answers. Obviously Essie didn't put that survey up for folks like us - 20 polishes? Are you kidding me? I myself have only managed to buy 3 lone Essie polishes, that seems pretty pitiful - I have more Sally Hansen polishes than that! They just don't draw me in too much. There are a few more I'd like to pick up though.BALKIE! OMG. Hahaha.So glad you found my swatches helpful! I probably could have skipped a bunch of them myself, but since they were so new, I thought since they were at my fingertips, I might as well get the whole thing. It helped I caught mine on sale as well.

I am a sucker for holos too. I have some of this collection but maybe I should complete it. I also want to try that Milky White Basecoat.I agree with that Essie survey, I can't believe their highest amount of np's was 20! That's a joke, but us nail polish fanatics are a rare breed!I loooooove Perfect Strangers!! I used to watch it all the time. However I did not remember the 'dance of joy' thanks for brining it all back!

Nicole - Oh, yeah, sales are the best at drawing us in, aren't they? I was so grateful for your swatches, too; I pulled them up on my phone in the store! People thought I was nuts, I'm sure, as the polishes were, of course, on the bottom shelf, so I had to grovel about on the floor ;)

Nessa - Yeah, I had to laugh at "20". A lot. And the dance of joy - one of my favorite memories from the show!

Nixxy - I know, me too. Now I'll *have* to get the OMG collection, too - sigh. Not My Fault.

Mary - I'm so glad you found them! They were pretty speedy, and I loves me some freebies!

Oh wow that is one hell of a box of presents! They are kind of hypnotic with all the shiny glitter. Ps. don't be ashamed of leaving polish on for 5 days! Some times if I really like a mani I'll keep it for up to 2 weeks with touch ups!

Thank you for posting about that survey. I took it and just had to laugh also. I don't have 20 polishes of Essie. So maybe I should've counted them. I think it may be 6-8. I keep my polish on till it chips. Two or three days at the most. I've never had any polish stay on that long without something happening. If I love it I do touch ups also and keep it on. When Essie wanted to know about the sexy color I thought where's the greens? I put my favorite color as Mesmerize (Essie that is). I forgot about Starry Starry Night. Which I also don't have. Also they have nerve calling it a free gift. If it was truly free I wouldn't have to purchase anything. Well now that I'm done my rant, those holos are amazing! I think I have the whole collection. I'm not sure, maybe most of it. I will get the rest of them. I tried to get all the DS by OPI. Lots of discontinued shades there. I do go on so much.

rijaH - I thought about these for awhile and I am *so glad* I finally ordered them!

Lucy - I know just what you mean; I think my answer for "sexy color" was something like "holos and any color that makes me feel unique and chic," or something like that. And I'm with you on the free gift thing, too. Sigh. I, too, was trying to get all of the DS, but I think I've given up the ghost on that one, though I always buy them when I see them on clearance ^_^